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BioWare Details Importing, Combat in Dragon Age II

The response to the announcement of Dragon Age II back in July was a mix of enthusiasm and fanboy fury. The game is getting a major overhaul, and many have questions about the direction BioWare is taking the franchise. Thankfully, lead designer Mike Laidlaw has answers.

In an interview with NowGamer, Laidlaw addresses some of the biggest fears Dragon Age: Origins loyalists have expressed about Dragon Age II, namely their customized character in the first game being pushed aside for BioWare's Hawke, and a reworked combat system the developer has thus far kept quiet about.

Asked the first question, (why Hawke?) Laidlaw said it was because BioWare had a very specific story to tell:

"Hawke is a unique chance to craft a story around a character who's had a significant impact on history," Laidlaw told NowGamer. "The overriding story structure that drives Dragon Age II is answering a question. The overriding goal of Dragon Age: Origins was to gather an army to defeat the blight. Dragon Age II is really a more personal tale and the overriding question that is asked of the player is, 'Who was the champion of Kirkwall?' And the answer, of course, is Hawke."

But what about all of the choices Origins players made? Do the roughly 50 hours invested into the original mean nothing in the sequel? If we can't import our character, what can we import?

"We look at it as importing the world really," Laidlaw said. "I've always seen Dragon Age as a franchise as about more than any one character. It's about entire an entire span of history and the whole world that's affected by what happens. So that was our approach and I think the importing stays true to that in the sense that the decisions your Warden made and the person they were all affects Dragon Age II. You know, who's in charge of Ferelden, what happened with the Dwarves, who's running Orzammar? All of these things are reflected and accounted for in Dragon Age II."

Asked about the reworked combat system, which BioWare has ambiguously described as "think like a general, fight like a Spartan," Laidlaw had this to say:

"The early impressions people have of the Dragon Age II combat is that they almost don't know what to make of it, and I think I understand why. It's because the visual presentation of the combat has been completely reworked."

You will still tactically command a team of four characters, he continued, only those controls have been streamlined to create a more free-flowing experience.

"Characters no longer move forward into positions then line themselves up to take their swing and fireballs don't take like 10 seconds of finger waggling to launch," Laidlaw said. "Everything has been made much faster and much more responsive, so that as a player I can count on my team actually executing my orders quickly, efficiently and even more importantly, stylishly."

Dragon Age II is being developed for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Windows and Mac OS. The game is set to ship on March 8.

Sharkey says: For myself and many other RPG fans out there, one of the best aspects of the genre is the ability to create your own character. No matter how BioWare pitches Hawke, there's no getting around the fact a sizable portion of Origins players will be disappointed. BioWare itself has actually criticized the Final Fantasy franchise for not allowing fans to create their own characters, going so far as to say FF is not an RPG. And the clunky controls in Origins were a console problem. Add the two changes together, and the answer appears clear: BioWare is taking a title best played on the PC and transforming it for the console crowd.